Tories slam gun drop-off zones plan

Government plans for a nationwide network of "drop-off" zones where illegal guns can be handed in anonymously have been branded as "feeble" by the Tories.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that the Government's priority in the wake of the killing of Liverpool schoolboy Rhys Jones was to get firearms off the streets.

The Conservatives, however, said that ministers appeared "paralysed" in the face of deepening public alarm over the recent spate of youth gun crime.

They accused Labour of presiding over a "staggering" fourfold increase in deaths and injuries from attacks involving firearms.

Mrs Smith's response was to disclose in an interview with the News of the World that officials are working with police on a series of measures to encourage people to report or hand in illegally held weapons.

She said that people who knew where firearms were hidden, or were holding them for a relative or friend, needed to be able to come forward anonymously without fear or reprisals or arrest.

She said that people needed to be able to go somewhere to hand in weapons or pass on information, without necessarily contacting the police directly.

Home Office officials stressed that the plans - which are still at an early stage - did not represent a general firearms amnesty as police would still be able to investigate any weapons that were handed in for links to crime.

However, the proposals were greeted with scorn by shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert who said that ministers had failed to address the scale of the problem.

"It's a feeble response. I think the Government, frankly, seem paralysed in the wake of this real concern in the country about the increase in violence and in particular the increase in knife crime and gun crime," he said.